Random Fall Pictures.

 

Our ward has THREE sets of sister missionaries which means we can feed them as much as we want. I love sister missionaries and the kindness they show me when they are in my home.

We have a friend in our ward working for the Friend Magazine in Salt lake. She passed Charlie’s name to a woman who was looking for kids to watch conference and write a response to their favorite talk. I have to admit that Charlie and Matthew both did a better job of watching conference than Seth and I. They had packets they filled out about every talk. After it was over Charlie wrote about his favorite talk and I sent it off to Salt Lake the next morning. He was really excited when the magazine finally came. His first publication;)

Matthew was honored at the schools first “Soaring Eagle Assembly” of the year. His award was for “helpfulness.”

Conrad and his “Michael” doll.

When Lucy started preschool, Conrad started a weekly playgroup with three other kids from the ward. He loves this more than anything and I love having a full morning to myself to run all my errands.

Conrad’s other love is his friend Willa. She comes to our home a couple of days a week while her mom is in school. They look like twins and people always comment on them when we go for our morning walks. Once there were leaves on the ground they were obsessed with jumping in them for long stretches of time.

We built a fire in our fireplace during conference. I’m not sure it put off much heat but the ambience was nice.

We went to Café Rio and the boys opted to split a real salad. I love my kids liking real grown-up food.

 

Our dear friends the Conners, who have two kids the same age as Charlie and Matthew, moved to St Louis for a job change. We were sad to see them go so for one last hoorah we went to Bounce U.

Charlie and Matthew Fall Soccer. 11/2

Both boys played soccer during the fall. I loved how the practices forced us all out of the house on week nights to play at playgrounds. The boys both had great teams.  Matthew’s team was made up of almost all kids from his first grade class and coached by one of their moms.  Charlie didn’t know a soul on his team when I dropped him off for his first practice, but inline with character, he rolled with it and loved it.

Halloween 10/31

Mad Scientist (complete with Ebola cure), Police Officer, Queen Elsa, and Squirrel

Fall is by far my favorite season so it’s no surprise that I LOVE Halloween. I volunteered to run Charlie’s class party again this year (4th year in a row) and it turned out great. His school still allows all the students to dress up and they do a massive parade that many of the parents come to watch (poor Matthew had no dressing up or parade at his school). I took Lucy in her Elsa costume and she fell right into line with Charlie and marched through the whole school with him.

After the parade the kids ate cupcakes, felt around in a creepy touch-and-feel box, and then we played bingo. I wondered if the kids were getting to old for bingo but I was wrong. They all took it very seriously! 

I love the drive out to Charlie’s school, it’s about as rural we get. The trees were vibrant!

Our ward hosted a trunk-a-treat which was fun and packed. Our kids got just as much candy at that event as they do trick-or-treating in the neighborhoods. I also enjoyed the hot chocolate!

The kids had Halloween day off so we went to a potluck at the park in the morning. It was nice to get out and let them get their energy out. Sadly Matthew left the belt to his police costume at the park and it was gone when we went back to get it. There were a lot of sad tears over the lost belt! Conrad is really into monkeys and so a friend volunteered to make him a monkey mask and and tail. He loves them for about 5 seconds at a time but they have gotten tons of use from all of his siblings.

Halloween night was perfect. We all went around to the townhomes in our neighborhood and finished up in less than 45 minutes. Lucy and Conrad were done but Charlie and Matthew wanted to go to more places. We went to the neighborhood next to ours and people were really happy to see us. It’s an older neighborhood and they don’t get a lot of trick-or-treaters. They got candy by the handfuls! Both boys were really concerned we weren’t going to be able to find the car but at 8pm we were all done and did find the car. We came home and stuffed ourselves (the peanut butter snickers were my parent tax) while watching Garfield’s Halloween special.

Thacker Family Visit. 10/15

Grandma and Grandpa Thacker, along with Lucinda and Effie came to Maryland for a fall visit.

We played games. (This was Charlie’s first time playing Uno)

Grandma, Grandpa, and Effie were able to go to Mt Vernon and Arlington National Cemetery for a day while Lucinda hung out with me. We watched Gilmore Girls while I folded mountains of laundry. Win, win!

They came with us to soccer games and watched Matthew score his first goal of the season.

We went out to dinner to Red Robin but sadly Aunt Lucinda was having seizers so her and Grandma hung back at the house.

We went out to the Homestead Farm to pick apples. This made me really miss Michigan, apple picking is not nearly as fun when it is not followed by freshly made donuts.

On Sunday morning we drove over to Lake Needwood to see the changing leaves but it was cold and windy so we didn’t stay long.

Yes, Aunt Effie is under that pile of kids. She was a good sport and so was Grandpa for reading a Pokemon book to Lucy. Seth made a delicious Apple Crisp from all the apples we picked. We are so thankful for family who will come such a long distance to see us! The kids were in Heaven and they all had a hard time after they left.

Lucy’s first day of preschool! 10/13

Lucy was born ready for preschool. This is only a slight exaggeration. Watching her two older brothers trot off to school everyday has made this girl extremely anxious for her turn. She is attending a preschool at Wootton High School four days a week. It’s the same kind of program Matthew did but at a different school. There are 10 kids in the class with a certified preschool teacher (Mrs. Howard) and then high school students rotate in and out to help. She has loved it from the first day and is happy everyday she gets to go.

 

With preschool has come a more rigorous hair schedule to keep her hair up. This was a favorite!

She loves to have me take her pictures which means I have millions of pictures of her. She also loves to draw pictures of her family, I especially love how she drawers Conrad in the pictures.

Cousin Amber comes to Maryland. 9/15

My cousin Amber made a surprise visit to Maryland. I hadn’t seen her in over SIX years so I was really excited that she decided to swing by and stay a few days. We spent a summer together in Alaska and she was such a positive example of good in my life. She has been off saving the family business for the last five years and they were finally able to sell it (big positive) which meant she was unemployed and free. She took a driving tour across the country and part of that trip was me! It was non stop chatting between us for the two days she was with me. We hiked around lake Needwood with three kids (overly ambitious) but we made it. She also tagged along to soccer practice and entertained the kids. She also accompanied me to Activity Days which wasn’t so good (we learned about balloon tying which was fun for the girls but wasn’t such a good thing for Amber since she suffers from Globophobia). It was too fast of a visit but such a happy distraction from regular life.

Since the world we live in is so small, there is actually another girl we played with in Alaska living in my ward with her family. We all got together and swapped stories of that wild summer!

Christina, Sharon, Amber